Japanese malware attacks have been on the rise, and knowing how to protect your website is crucial.
Not all malware attacks are the same; some may cause your website to shut down, while others quietly create malicious pages that appear in Google searches.??
Your response should align with the severity of the attack. Stay calm; recovery is possible.??
???♂?When Your Website is Shut Down:
Your response should be swift in case the attack is severe and website has been shut down.
- Investigate recent WordPress plugin installations.
- Scrutinize plugin security thoroughly.
- As WordPress plugins are often targeted, review all of them diligently, even if it's painful. Use Wordpress Fence.
??Prevent Google from crawling infected pages:
- Compile a list of pages you want Google to de-index.
- If there are numerous infected pages, identify a common URL pattern and share it with Google.??
??Long Term Approach
- Diversify demand generation channels.
- Schedule regular website plugins and security reviews; remove unnecessary plugins.
- Implement a backup website on Cloudflare for added protection.????
??How did We Fight Back ?
I asked our inbound marketing manager based on our experience. Here are the steps shared.
- Identifying the URLs added during the Japanese Malware Attack: You can uncover such pages by searching for site:[your site root URL] japan in the Google search.
- Compile the list of infected URLs you see in Google Searches and submit in the Google Webmaster Tool for De-indexing.
- Backup your site before cleaning
- Run a Malware Scan
- Your wp-config file is your website’s configuration file and clearly most wanted by hackers. In case of a hack, the attacker can insert malicious content in this file too. Make sure to thoroughly scan this file and remove the unfamiliar contents to remove Japanese SEO spam from your website.
- Replace the infected core files, plugin files & theme files
- Redeploy your site and don’t forget to update your plugins.????
??Lasting Effects of Japanese Malware Attack:
- Many of your indexed pages are replaced by infected pages, hence you need to resubmit the Sitemap.
- You might experience a traffic drop for your website. Don’t panic, it would take time for Google to reindex the right pages and bring traffic back.??
??One SaaS entrepreneur from Chandigarh shared the following steps:
- Take the website down immediately if it is a recent malware.
- Check cache and try to find the date of articles that are infected. In other words, articles published before that date are secure.
- Remove the articles that are infected.
- Remove bad links and get them de-indexed.
- You might end up losing some articles, see if Google has crawled them and have them, get the content from there, re-write them.
- Last step is to use screamingfrogs on your entire website. This would allow you to see 404 errors, articles that are being read by google and if everything is back to normal or not.
